An Intellectual Magpie

If asked, most people would surely agree that Shakespeare was a thinker. Even the generally received picture of Shakespeare, featuring that prominent forehead, emphasizes his braininess. Still, the precise quality of the playwright’s thought remains elusive. As the late critic and Oxford professor A. D. Nuttall disarmingly admits in his new study, “We have no idea what Shakespeare thought, finally, about any major question.” Finally is, however, an important...

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